Yes, the daily shower has now been added to the long and growing list of things deemed unhealthy, unsanitary, and downright dangerous by hacks whose primary job is to fill space on someone’s blog.
As noted by someone calling themselves Josh Clark at How Stuff Works:
It's conventional wisdom that the more you shower, the cleaner you are. Lathering up with a healthy dose of soap and washing it off with a nice stream of hot water should kill any germs on your skin. Studies by medical researchers have shown quite the opposite, however. Using plain old soap (as opposed to antimicrobial or antibacterial soap) doesn't kill skin-borne bacteria. It actually disturbs microcolonies of skin flora and fauna, transferring them to the surrounding environment -- like your shower, for instance. For this reason, surgical teams and patients are generally restricted from showering immediately before entering an operating room.
The writer cites this source from the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention’s Journal of Emerging Infectious Diseases, but there is no headline for this particular edition readily indicating the research he references. Maybe it’s buried in one of the articles and if that’s the case, Clark should have linked to that particular piece of research specifically.
He goes on to write this in the very next paragraph: “Still, showering regularly is recommended for good personal hygiene,” and, “Showering too much, however, can have a potentially damaging effect on your skin.”
So, which is it?
The point is this: The research and the article don’t pass the (ahem) smell test.
Think about it. If showering were so doggone unhealthy, how come there isn’t more disease and pestilence in the world, and especially the first world, where daily showering and bathing is routine?
Also, what is “too much showering?” Once per day? Once per week? Twice a day?
If the research being cited above were accurate, wouldn’t people constantly be sick, just from stepping into their shower?
Some people keep their shower stalls immaculate while others let theirs go for months before cleaning them up; what’s the sickness ratio between clean shower stalls and dirty ones, 1:10? 1:200? 1:1,000? (Related: Shower filters head off water contaminants.)
The article goes onto state that not only is it unhealthy, generally speaking, to shower “often,” people add to their unhealthy hygiene behavior by drying off with a towel.
More:
Another problem related to showering too often is the use of a towel to dry off. While rubbing yourself dry with a towel is common practice, it's also a damaging one for your skin. Air drying is the optimal way to dry off following a shower, but if you don't have time to wait for evaporation or don't like tracking bathwater throughout your house, you can still use a towel. Just make sure it's a soft one and use a gentle patting motion to absorb water.
So again — which is it? You can use a towel…or you can’t?
And aren’t all towels “soft” and “gentle?” Do people use sandpaper to dry off with after a harmful, skin-endangering shower? Air-drying probably is a good thing, but is it really a better way to dry off than using a towel?
There’s just an awful lot of “maybes” and “perhaps” and “possiblys” in this story. No hard-and-fast conclusions.
The fact is there is more disease in parts of the world where inhabitants don’t have the ability to wash regularly, where there is no access to any soap or clean water. That has been proven in numerous studies for decades.
Why now, all of a sudden, it’s “unhealthy” to take a daily shower, then use — egads! — a towel to dry off with, makes no sense.
Read Stupid.news for more examples of stupid ideas from stupid people.
J.D. Heyes is a senior writer for NaturalNews.com and NewsTarget.com, as well as editor of The National Sentinel.
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